After attending Eton he joined the army in 1809[citation needed] as a cornet in the 10th Hussars, but resigned in 1811. Following his father's death in 1797, Durham had inherited an immense fortune, derived largely from mining on lands surrounding Lambton Castle, the ancestral family home in County Durham, which formed the basis of Lambton Collieries. Other properties in County Durham included Dinsdale Park and Low Dinsdale Manor.[citation needed]. In 1821, he earned the epithet 'Jog Along Jack', after being asked what was an adequate income for an English gentleman, and replying, "that a man might jog along comfortably enough on £40,000 a year"[4] (equivalent to approximately £3,900,000 at 2014 values)[5]

Lord Durham has been lauded in French Canadian history for his recommendation to introduce responsible government. However, the British government did not accept that recommendation and it took 10 more years before Parliamentary democracy was finally established in the colonies.[13] Lord Durham is less well regarded for recommending the union of Upper and Lower Canada.

As soon as 1844, Lord Durham's intended policy of assimilation faced setbacks, as Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine's party in the House managed to force de facto re-establishment of French as a language of Parliament. Once responsible government was achieved (1848), French Canadians in Canada East succeeded by voting as a bloc in ensuring that they were powerfully represented in any cabinet, especially as the politics of Canada West was highly factional. The resulting deadlock between Canada East and West led to a movement for federal rather than unitary government, which resulted in the creation of confederation, a federal state of Canada, incorporating New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, in 1867.[13]

Master Lambton: Lambton's eldest son (until his death, aged 13) Charles William, painted by Thomas Lawrence and later known as The Red Boy.

Lord Durham was twice married. He fell in love with Harriet, the illegitimate daughter of the Earl of Cholmondeley, but then aged under 21 and refused the required permission by his guardians to marry her, they married at Gretna Green on 1 January 1812, then in an Anglican ceremony at her father's estate of Malpas, Cheshire, on 28 January that year. They had three daughters, who all predeceased him:

Lady Frances Charlotte (16 October 1812 – 18 December 1835), married the Hon. John Ponsonby (later 5th Earl of Bessborough), but died a few months later of consumption.

^It was during Durham's trip to the Canadas aboard the Hastings that he experienced one of the first recorded cases of synesthesia. The observations were made by a friend of Durham's, Dr. William Henry Farrow, who was a young doctor travelling to the Canadas on Durham's invitation. New, Chester William (1929). Lord Durham. A Biography of John George Lambton, First Earl of Durham, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 612 p.

Bradshaw, Frederick (1903). Self-Government in Canada, and How it was Achieved: The Story of Lord Durham's Report. London: P.S.King. pp. 414 p.

Lambton, John George; Buller, Charles; Wakefield, Edward Gibbon (1839). The Report and Despatches of the Earl of Durham, Her Majesty's High Commissioner and Governor-General of British North America. London: Ridgways, Piccadilly.

Mill, John Stuart (January 1838). "Radical Party and Canada: Lord Durham and the Canadians". London and Westminster Review. s. VI & XXVIII.

Lambton, John George (1835). Speeches of the Earl of Durham on Reform of Parliament. Piccadilly: James Ridgway and Sons. pp. 204 p.